I can sympathize with that – I was saying the same kind of thing on the podcast in the spoilers half until Chip reminded me about the machine’s biggest use and probably the one it was created for, pulling Babylon 4 through time.

But yeah, it’s one of the biggest Chekov’s guns ever. And it does get fired a few times over the duration of the series, but ultimately (I think) not enough to turn it into the rampant deux ex machinae that it could have become.

I always look forward to this double ep in my rewatches – and I’m always a little bit underwhelmed afterwards. I think that like Mr Morden’s first appearance, we remember the *importance* of what is introduced – but in this case the introduction itself is a bit slow and I think this whole thing could have been better served compacted into one episode.

B5 – In the shadow of an episode stationed next, this seemed dull first time. In hindsight, it’s one of the great tragic Londo episodes through contrasting beloved friend to genocidal idiot. In self-sacrifice too. Jeffrey O’Hare gives Sinclair a lot of anger, verbally quiet but physically very sharp and powerful.
I forgot there’s a lot going on plot-wise in this, but it does leave a lot of space yes, and the characters have time to talk freely rather than obligations to story.
Another one I noticed on re-watch is the Garibaldi stalker thing. How much was he? I chuckled at the idea of him riding the telepath tubes to deliberately have a giggle at the telepath. His hair though, has gotten creepier with the re-watch.

I think certain points can be considered filler but the opening scene with Garibaldi in the transport tube was hilarious, even if it came a bit out of the blue. It didn’t really fit with his later obsession with finding out news about his ex on Mars but it did give an interesting edge to the following scene when he had to ask her for help.

The warship captain was very aggressive and the use of military stereotypes to reflect the views of the Command structure in Earth Force has been hammered home several times in s1. But for good reason! It also reinforces why the war with the Minbari happened – had Captain Picard been in charge of the ship that first encountered Minbari with gun ports open then it would have been quite different!!

In fairness to JMS he delivers a more realistic mindset for military Captains with relatively low-tech compared to every other race they encounter – a Picard-esque talky approach is much easier when you have a ship which is a match for most encounters…

Watching yet again after hearing the podcast, Delenn and Draal seem to behave towards each other in the way we expect humans who were former lovers or members of the same family would. I think JMS missed a chance either way here: a) if the Minbari can feel this strongly about another member of the same race, or caste, without the prefabricated bond of family or the bond of partnership, it would have been good to have something to show that they were neither family nor lovers; b) given that the wasn’t scared of alluding to non-traditional sexuality elsewhere in the series, some explicit allusion to their past love life, as something not unusual but expected or even required, would have been dramatic and have added to the sense that aliens are, you know, _alien_ 🙂

I’ve always wondered if this was one of the chances Lady Morella refers to in Point of No return-
“You still have three opportunities to avoid the fire that waits for you at the end of your journey. You have already wasted two others.”

Londo often regrets the outcomes of his choices (when those outcomes are tragic) I’m wondering how different he would have been knowing the outcomes.

Been listening for a few episodes now and have decided to back my fifth rewatch from mid-season three to join you at the beginning of the second.

Anywho, I’ve backing up to listen to episodes I’ve missed and desperately wish I could have called in when you were discussing the Minbari concept of “going to sea.” I don’t know if you’ve discussed this, but JMS is a fan of Tolkien. That particular idea always struck me as the Elven concept of sailing from the Grey Havens. The Minbari themselves are very much like Tolkien’s Elves: graceful, artistic, stoic.

Later in the series, of course, the Rangers are introduced and Lorien, the Shadows, Z’hadum – all obvious nods to Tolkien. (I’ve even described the show as Lord of the Rings in space to some friends who wanted to know what it was about.)

First time-commenter, here! I’ve been barrelling through your fantastic podcasts all weekend, along with the episodes, and I’m dreading the fast-approaching time when I’ll catch up and have to wait for new ones 🙂

Anyway! I noted one character-continuity thing that wasn’t mentioned: regarding the question of Londo’s capacity for self-sacrifice, the first thing I thought of was the season 4 episode “Into the Fire.” It’s the one where Londo evicts all of the Shadows from Centauri Prime since the Vorlons are destroying all people corrupted by the Shadows, and when Vir points out that Londo himself worked with them, he immediately begs Vir to kill him, without a hint of hesitation. It always catches me by surprise a little bit, but I like it a whole lot more thinking about it in the context of this episode.

On an unrelated note, the “going to sea” phrase made me think of the John Carter books, though I have no idea if there’s any actual influence going on. But in the books, when people on the planet Barsoom (i.e. Mars) grow to be of exceptional age, they leave everything behind to make a sort of winding pilgrimage “down the River Iss” to the lost sea of Mars, where they expect to find some sort of afterlife, though no one really knows what’s there (until John Carter finds out, but that’s another story). It’s a journey whose ultimate end is death, but the point is that there’s a long and wandering journey of discovery along the way to getting there.